ira deorum
by dynamiic
Summary: Three years after the defeat of Lucemon, Takuya and Kouji receive a vague call for help from Zoe, pleading them to go back to rid of the next evil that was permanently deleting the Digital World's data. With the others missing and new foes to face, their job just got a lot harder than the last. And what's the deal with an 11th Legendary Warrior? Post Frontier. Episode style.


"Man, I hate geometry," Takuya groaned as he sat criss crossed on his bed, slaving over his homework that his mom finally got him to do.

He threw his pencil down on his textbook and leaned back on his wall with a sigh. Now being a freshman in high school and still having one of the laziest knacks for academics, he was definitely not having the time of his life. He sighed again and craned his neck to gaze around his room to look for any sort of distraction that would relinquish him from the daunting task of finding surface areas and spherical volume.

His wandering eyes landed on his picture frames that were sitting idly by on his desk, the glass casings reflecting the orange glow of the sun that was shining through his window. They were random photos of him and the gang from their monthly get-togethers and their trip to the beach last summer, all smiles and innocent fun. Him and JP being hilariously buried in the sand by Tommy and Zoe, him and Kouji with an arm over each other's shoulders, Koichi and Zoe photo-bombing a picture of him and Tommy, and other photos from other occasions.

Takuya was never the type to keep photos, let alone framing them and setting them up for décor, but the people in them were just that important. After all, they'd saved the Digital World together and went on an insane roller coaster ride to do so.

Speaking of his friends, it bothered him that they hadn't kept in touch in the last month and a half. They all usually had the habit of calling in or emailing every other week to catch up, but his phone and emails were void of messages or calls from any of them. Despite it all, he understood that each of them had a new a life since they'd come back from the Digital World. However, it still worried him a bit that they all just stopped sending messages seemingly at the same time- even Kouji who sent messages the least frequently out of everyone.

"I wonder what they're up to," Takuya said to himself aimlessly and then annoyingly, "They better not be making plans without me."

He stared at his phone wishing, with every fiber of his being, that something would just come up… but it just sat there inanimate. He sighed for what seemed like the millionth time that day and turned his attention back to his work.

"_Ta-Takuya," _his phone suddenly came to life atop his desk out of nowhere, the static breaking up the familiar voice sounding through its speaker.

"_Takuya! Can you hear me? It's Zoe!" _Zoe's voice strainly said, the static growing louder behind it.

Takuya looked up from his pile of homework, surprised at the sudden call that answered his inward wishes. But it was odd; his phone just randomly sounded the call without any routine ringing like it usually did. It was just like when Ophanimon had first called upon them three years ago- his phone coming to life at its acceptance of her summoning message.

"Oh man," he breathed when he realized this might be a potential emergency.

This was no ordinary call.

He got from his seat on the bed and scrambled towards his desk. He grabbed his phone with clumsy hands, flipped it open and saw that his screen harbored Zoe's pink Spirit symbol, the image fizzing with the static.

"Zoe! I hear you, what's going on?" Takuya almost yelled at his phone in his hands, "How are you able to contact me like this?"

"_Takuya, I don't have time to completely explain right now,"_ Zoe said with forcefully repressed panic, "_but the Digital World is in trouble again. You have to get down to the terminal at Shibuya Station; take the 5:45 outbound train from Jiyuugaoka and get over here as soon as you can!" _

"What? I thought that the platform was destroyed when Lucemon passed through to our world," Takuya protested, his heart starting to race.

"_After we left, Ophanimon, Seraphimon, and Cherubimon rebuilt the terminal during the world's reconstruction and kept it sealed away,"_ Zoe hastily explained, _"But that's not important! Takuya, you need to get down there and come back to the Digital World. We need you and Kouji!" _

"Me and Kouji?" he asked, his adrenaline pumping faster with every second his mind couldn't grasp what the situation was, "Why, Zoe what's happening?! Are you alright?! Where are you?!"

"_I'm s-rry Tak-ya- b- the sig-" _Zoe's voice cracked away and the screen fizzed back to blackness.

"Zoe!" Takuya exclaimed, clenching onto his phone with a tight grip. The first time he'd heard from Zoe in weeks and it was a panicked call for help.

His mind raced to make sense of her command and his gut told him there was something terribly wrong for her to call him unusually like that. What on earth was going on?

He looked up at his clock and read the time at 5:35, ten minutes before his designated train was to leave. He growled and internally swore to himself that it was not going to be like last time when he barely made it in time. Takuya quickly grabbed his green hat and goggles from his coat rack- attire he'd barely worn since they returned from the Digital World- before rushing out his door.

His homework could wait.

"Hey, young man!" his mother called after him in annoyance when he ran past her, "Where do you think you're going? I told you to finish your homework!"

"Sorry, Mom!" Takuya called back to her with a half wave as he ran to the front door, "I've got an emergency to take care of!"

"An emergency-?" she started to say but her questioning words were cut off by the closing slam of the door.

Takuya pumped his legs as fast as they could go down the steps and on the sidewalk, dodging his strolling neighbors along the way. The sun was beginning to set, elongating the shadows all around him and made the atmosphere feel all too familiar… it was exactly just like the first time he'd gotten the call from Ophanimon three years ago- minus the clumsiness.

He made it to the train station without a second wasted and took out his phone from his pocket. The screen was functioning back to normal, the time reading three minutes before 5:45. Takuya smirked at his tiny victory over the test of time he'd barely overcome the last time he was here on a mission. He ran for the ticket machine and, almost automatically, a ticket shined with fractal code protruded from the slim opening.

Takuya, having expected the same series of events more or less, quickly grabbed the ticket and raced up the stairs to the loading platform. The train was already there, giving the last chance for people to board and he made it in with a minute to spare.

The second he crossed the threshold between the platform and train, his eyes darted back and forth between the two ends of the car in search of Kouji, whom he figured to have gotten on the same train as they have before.

The train closed its doors and began to move, but Takuya found no sight of his friend among the crowd of people and wondered if he'd gotten to the underground terminal already- or if he'd gotten the same message from Zoe at all.

"Zoe," Takuya stared at the screen of his phone as if she were miraculously to answer him from out of the blue, "What in the world is going on?"

He had no ounce of knowledge or even a guess as to what the emergency was. To be called out of the blue like that, especially with regards to the Digital World that they hadn't come in contact with for the last three years, was daunting. And where were Tommy? JP? Koichi? Kouji? Zoe was evidently in trouble, which gave the answer as to why she hadn't been keeping in touch, but what about the others? Were they in trouble as well?

Takuya's mind couldn't come up with any explanation to fully grasp the situation.

The train stopped at its destination and he raced out of the doors before anyone else could get up from their seat, clumsily bumping into the people waiting to board.

"Watch it, kid!" an irritated man said, waving his fist at Takuya who was already running farther away.

"Sorry, buddy!" he called back apologetically before turning his attention back to his quickened steps.

The sensation of adrenaline mixed with déjà vu stimulated his nerves with excitement. It felt as if he really was back in time and he was making his way towards Shibuya Station for the first time again. It was a feeling he'd missed and found some sort of comfort in it- knowing he was heading back to the Digital World- but still, Zoe's call agitated him at the same time.

He was a few yards away from the familiar elevator when he saw that the doors were about to close, Kouji already inside and not noticing Takuya desperately sprinting towards it.

"Kouji!" Takuya called out but was still too far away for the other boy to hear.

He forced his legs to move even faster, carelessly dodging people along the way and keeping his focus straight on getting to the elevator. Suddenly, he realized that the doors were going to shut on him in the next few seconds and it'd be too late.

"Oh, come on!" he groaned, gasping for air, "Not this again!"

"Takuya!" Kouji yelled out at the last second when he finally saw Takuya closing his distance between him and the elevator.

Kouji moved to block the doors from closing with his arm but stepped back when Takuya lunged forward in attempt to jump through the opening. He barely made it through when the doors finally shut, the tips of his shoes an inch away from the metal. Kouji jumped aside and Takuya crashed face first on the back wall of the elevator, sliding down to the floor in pain as the elevator moved downwards.

"Jeez, talk about déjà vu," Kouji commented, looking down at his friend in amusement and holding at a hand, "That was an even better landing than the first time. I give that an eight."

Takuya slightly glared at him and rubbed his reddened nose before taking his hand. Kouji hoisted him up.

"Oh, you're hilarious," Takuya said sarcastically, "That wouldn't have happened if you'd held the door open for me!"

Koui shrugged, "Sorry, didn't see you. But hey…"

"What?"

"Did you get a weird call from Zoe earlier, too?" Kouji looked at him with hardened eyes, "Something about heading back to the Digital World?"

"Yeah, I did," Takuya nodded, "That was the first time I heard from her in weeks."

'That was the first time I heard from _anyone_ in weeks," Kouji said bluntly.

"What? Even Koichi?"

"Yeah, the last time I talked to him he said he was gonna go on a short trip with Mom and he wasn't lying because I called in and even tried to visit but no one was home… That was about a month ago. I don't know about you, but a month long trip doesn't seem so 'short' to me."

"Kouji," Takuya said, finding it even stranger that Koichi- who had exponentially strengthened his relationship with his Kouji over the last few years- hadn't been keeping in contact with his twin brother in a while.

"Kouji, something's up. Zoe called us and I saw her Spirit symbol pop up on the screen. That means she's got her D-Tector and if she has her D-Tector, she's in Digital World. And if she's in the Digital World, calling us for help, then there's something horrible happening."

"Genius deduction there, smarty. I hadn't figured that out," Kouji said sarcastically as the elevator reached the bottom of the underground.

Before Takuya could throw a retort, the doors opened to reveal the familiar Shibuya Station terminal. They cautiously walked out, scanning the platform, and found that it looked exactly the same as the first time they'd been there, despite having been destroyed by Lucemon. However, this time around, the place was completely and eerily empty.

"Hey, there's a Trailmon over there!" Takuya said, pointing to the far right of circular terminal.

Kouji turned to where he indicated and saw the end of a Trailmon sticking out of the dark tunnel. It was the only one around and just sat there with all its doors open, as if it had been patiently waiting for them.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Takuya said, impatiently running down the steps and towards one of the inviting doors.

Kouji followed after him and just as their feet touched the inside of the train, all the openings closed shut and the Trailmon's wheels began to turn.

"Guess this guy was waiting for us," Takuya said, taking a seat.

"Apparently," Kouji said as he looked around and sat across from him. The Trailmon picked up speed, the rush of air and metal wheels on tracks sounding through its windows.

"Takuya, do you have any idea what Zoe was talking about?" Kouji asked, "What did she tell you?"

"She told me that the Digital World was in trouble again and they needed us to go back," he said, recollecting his memory.

"She told me the same thing," Kouji said with a nod, "But who did she mean by 'they'?"

"I don't know, she didn't say," Takuya answered, but then a hunch clicked in his mind.

"What if she means the others? What if they're in trouble, too? That would explain why everyone suddenly stopped sending messages!"

"That could be a possibility," Kouji said, hardening at the thought of trouble, "But what I don't understand is if there _is_ trouble and if they _are_ in trouble, why haven't _we _been summoned to go back until now? How is it even possible for them to return in the first place?"

"Ophanimon got us here once, she can do it again," Takuya said simply, clenching his fists.

"Then how come Zoe was the one who called us and not Ophanimon?"

"Something must have happened to her, too."

Kouji tightened his jaw when he perceived the unknown situation to be much more dire than he'd thought. Even though they had absolutely no leads, he was keen enough to know that the current events were utterly strange. What's happening that's bad enough for them to be summoned back to the Digital World? Where was Zoe? Were the others in trouble?

The questions were endless in his mind.

Out of nowhere, their phones began to beep and the screens shined a bright pink light in their pockets. They quickly took them out at the sound and saw that Zoe's Spirit symbol had returned.

"Zoe!" they both exclaimed.

"_Guys! I'm sorry but I only have a twenty second window to talk," _Zoe's voice sounded through their speakers, "_When you get to the Digital World, you have to find Tommy, JP and Koichi. They've been taken!"_

"What? Taken by who?" Kouji aggressively asked.

"_The-se ev-l d-gim-n," _her voice started to crack from the returning static, "_I d-n't kn-w wh- th-th-y a-re."_

"What?" Takuya asked, panicked that they'd lose contact with her again.

"_I do-'t ha-ve much t-me left,"_ Zoe said quickly, the static still distorting her voice, "_Th-re's one m-mor-! Aside from the others, y-o ne-d to f-fi-nd h-er!"_

"Find who?!" they both asked, completely confused by her message.

The static screeched too loudly for them to hear her reply.

They'd lost the signal.

Right when their screens blackened, the Trailmon's lights went out and its body shook, signifying the entrance of the Digital World. Their phones shined brightly and a light engulfed them, temporarily blinding them in the darkness. The light then gradually faded away and revealed that their phones had transformed back into their familiar D-Tectors, their curves feeling better in their hands than their phones'. The images of Agunimon and Lobomon appeared on each of their screens, faint beeping sounding the spirits' return.

"Oh, man," Takuya breathed, feeling the long-lost connection between him and the Spirit of Agunimon coming back, "I sure did miss this."

"Yeah," Kouji agreed feeling Lobomon and was just as mesmerized and nostalgia-stricken as Takuya was. The warm glow of their Spirits was rejuvenating.

The Trailmon abruptly shifted and shook them off their seats as it made its way up vertically on the tracks, the two exclaiming at the sudden movement. They could hear the loud creaking of the wheels and the cheering of the Trailmon from the outside as it charged upwards. They still could not grasp how in the world the train could defy the laws of nature but then again, what didn't in this world?

In what seemed like an eternity, it finally slowed down after returning to its horizontal orientation.

"Argh," Takuya groaned, dizzied and rubbing the back of his head that had hit the floor, "But I sure didn't miss that part of the ride."

The movement suddenly stopped as the wheels hissed at the breaks. They both oriented themselves back to normal as the doors opened on their own accord. They stepped off the train and blocked their eyes from the sun's bright rays; it was apparently midday.

"Good luck, tykes!" Buffalo the Trailmon, evidently their ride, called to them as he started to move onwards on the tracks.

"We're counting on you, you hear me?"

"Uh, yeah!" Takuya called back, "You know we got you! With whatever we have to do…"

The two looked around on the platform of the station and took in the setting, realizing that they missed this place more than they thought. The atmosphere, the smell, the sight of it all was exactly the same as they'd remembered. They were back to their second home.

"Wow, this place hasn't changed a bit," Takuya commented, "Well, you know, if you don't count it having been destroyed once and all."

"Oh, Takuya! Kouji!" they heard a familiar voice call out to them, almost as if it were on the verge of crying, "You're finally here!"

"You're finally here!" a high-pitched voice echoed.

"Wha-" Takuya turned just in time to see Bokomon and Neemon's crying faces before they tackled him to the ground.

"Bokomon, Neemon!" Kouji said, laughing, "You guys haven't changed a bit."

"My, you two have grown as much as the others! Oh, how wonderful I could just cry," Bokomon sobbed into Takuya's shirt and not letting go of his tight grip, "We absolutely missed you!"

"Hey, hey, we missed you too, buddies," Takuya said, not knowing how to calm down the crying Bokomon, "But would you mind getting off? You're soaking my shirt."

"Oh, yes, yes of course," Bokomon said, recomposing himself and letting the boy get back on his feet.

"Were you expecting us?" Kouji asked.

"Yes, we actually were," the little digimon answered, "We've been waiting for quite some time now but at last, you're finally here! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the safety of the Digital World's under siege again. That's why you've been summoned."

"We got a message from Zoe to come back here," Takuya said, holding his D-Tector, "She said the same thing. Bokomon, have you see the others? We haven't heard from them in a while back in the human world."

"Zoe? You've heard from Zoe?" Bokomon exclaimed, apparently surprised by the mention of that piece of information, "Oh, Heavens, how?"

"She called us just like how Ophanimon did when we first came to this world," Kouji said.

"How can that be? She was captured!" Bokomon said, even more surprised.

"Captured?"

"She was the last we saw of your lot," the little white digimon said sadly, "Ophanimon summoned the others back here when trouble arose, given the mission to find the source and destroy it. We followed them and…"

"And what? What happened?

"One by one, they were mysteriously digi-napped by unknown digimon that I've never seen before. Zoe was the last one to be captured."

"But who took them, Bokomon? What exactly is happening here?" Takuya asked impatiently. He was getting more agitated by the second.

Bokomon's expression darkened.

'The virus," he said grimly.

"The virus! The virus!" Neemon squealed.

"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Takuya asked, confused.

"You mean like a computer virus?" Kouji proposed.

"Yes, exactly," Bokomon nodded, "A digital body that carries destructive codes that completely wipes out or distorts any data it comes in contact with. We believed that the viruses that existed at the creation of the Digital World were disposed of by its creators… but apparently that wasn't so."

"The virus's been eating everything!" Neemon chimed, "Everythiiing!"

"So Zoe, Koichi and the others were summoned back to get rid of it?" Kouji asked, realizing that Koichi really had been lying to him about going away on a trip.

"Why weren't we? We're the ones who can spirit evolve to the stronger digimon."

"The others asked the same question but Ophanimon refused to answer," Bokomon said, "We believed that she knew more than what she told us, but before we could prod her any longer, she was taken by one of the same unknown digimon that took the others soon after, including Seraphimon and Cherubimon."

"Oh, man," Takuya said, "Those things were strong enough to overcome all three Celestial Digimon? You've gotta be kidding!"

"I'm afraid not, Takuya," Bokomon said, "Ever since Zoe was taken, we've been waiting here at this station in case you or Kouji ever came. You two are our last hope before the virus completely deletes the Digital World!"

"How long have they all been gone?" Kouji asked, not liking every bit of what he was hearing.

"It's been close to a month," Bokomon said, "It may look normal here but oh dear, the virus must have eaten and altered so much data by now."

Kouji and Takuya exchanged apprehensive glances and knew that their good homecoming was short lived. It hadn't been twenty minutes since they'd been back at the Digital World and they'd already gotten a heavy burden thrust upon their shoulders.

The game started now.

"But wait," Takuya interjected, "When we returned to the human world after we defeated Lucemon, no time had passed when we left. How come time's passed equally between here and the human world this time?"

"I'm guessing that's one of the virus's affects," Bokomon mused, "From reading Ophani's library, I learned data is widespread through the Digital World and if one specific code is altered, so is another. That must be what's tampering with time."

"Oh jeez," Takuya groaned, realizing that this time the longer they stayed there, the longer they were gone from the real world.

He still had his geometry homework to finish.

"My mom's gonna kill me."

* * *

_Yay! So I just recently got back to obsessing with Digimon. I finished rewatching Digimon Frontier and I realize that it's seriously my favorite season aside from the first. When I really love something, I always tend to want to write fanfiction about it hahaha. So here I am!_

_I wanted to approach this fic like a real episode of the anime therefore the slight lack of complete detail. I also used the english names because it felt weird typing their Japanese names in english, so please excuse that if you don't fancy it. I'm dead set on making it seem realistic as far as how the Digimon anime goes. _

_I also wanted this first chapter to be a sort of pilot chapter to see if this is something people would want to read. I have an entire plot already set up in my head and all I need to do is to get it typed out and posted. :) Regardless if people like/dislike it, I'll type it out but I'll only post it up if people are willing to read it!_

_So please drop a review with comments, questions, concerns, suggestions and/or constructive feedback because I really would love to know if I should continue with this or not. Honest opinions are most welcome. If not, I think I'm just going to delete it off my archives. So, again, if you want to read more, please don't hesitate to drop a review or fav/alert it!_

_Thanks for reading! Until next time~_


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